Summary of the third week in the bush from November 1-7.
This week Ian and I interviewed many more people, including a midwife illegally practicing her skills for desperate local wives (the village outlawed the practice of midwifery because they wanted to encourage women to go to the dispensaries and health centers to give birth. Unfortunately, they didn’t take into account that most dispensaries/health centers are many kilometers away for these women’s homes and that their main form of transport is on foot, that most of the dispensaries don’t have electricity and are staffed with only one or two people - making getting to and getting treatment from the dispensaries/health centers as a pregnant woman about to deliver, is next to impossible). We also interviewed other health care providers from the dispensaries and pharmacies around Oltukai, Mto wa Mbu (Mosquito River), and others to garner a total of 30 interviews ranging from 15 minutes to 1.5 hours. We also tracked down a natural healer this week. She was not at her house, so we asked the women standing around her boma where she was. They pointed in the direction that she had gone in with her bicycle en route to seeing a patient. We then proceeded to find her and drive across barren fields to get right up to her and asked to interview her. She consented, but said that we must ask her husband first. I visited several women’s cooperatives this week and got to know the members of the Enyorata Women’s Group in town a lot better when they invited me into their boma and introduced themselves and asked me to hold their baby, thinking that the mzungu (white person) would somehow give the baby luck. This week I also went with Caleb, Brendan, and Yohana (the other translator) to a Maasai bibi’s (grandmother’s) boma. Caleb had interviewed bibi before and she had invited him and some friends along to sample a typical Maasai dish. As Caleb interviewed bibi’s daughters, bibi and her other daughters asked me questions to see how old I was, how many children I had, and if my hair was a wig. When I answered that I didn’t have any children and was 20 years old, they said ‘pole sana’ (I’m very sorry) very sincerely. I then told them that it was nothing to be sorry about and that in America, women are not married until they are in their 20s or 30s, usually. They were shocked at this news - why would a women want to be married and start having children when she would be clearly past her prime?! While we were chatting, bibi’s grandchildren would touch my skin and hair when I wasn’t looking. Daudi said that they think that wazungu skin is like what their body looks like without skin. After the interview, bibi fed us lushoro (a Maasai food that is a porriage-esque drink made from maize, maize flower, sour milk, whole milk, and mixed in a huge kalabash (gourd). They also light a special stick on fire and put it into the kalabash to give to porriage a smokey flavor. During the interview, I noticed that bibi’s daughter was holding her foot and analyzing it as if it hurt. We asked Yohana to inquire what was wrong, and he said that the woman had a thorn stuck in her foot and had sent her daughter to get another thorn as to attempt to dig the stuck one out. I remembered that Caleb had his Swiss Army knife with him, so we got the tweezers from it and gave it to the woman to use - and it worked in getting the thorn out! It was all very interesting and definitely an experience. This week, Ian and I helped to break in three new translators - two of which didn’t work out - in an effort to replace Yohana who left to join another group. More running this week, more watching amazing sunsets turn into glorious starry nights. Brittany had her birthday this week and I got to see how our cooks bake bread and cakes without an oven: they have a metal box and put the bread tin into the box and then proceed to keep the box hot by putting hot coals on top of the box until the bread is done baking - talk about innovation! On Friday, Dana and I won our weekly “East African Euchre Tournament”. We also took a trip to Mto wa Mbu, about 45 minutes away, to interview health care providers at a local health center. We got lots of good information, especially about Maasai perceptions of modern medicine. They also were very curious about us and asked us many questions about HIV/AIDS and health care in the U.S. This week we also interviewed another healer who practiced black magic. This interview was one of the best as he, like others expounded on how he used a magic kalabash (big gourd) to determine if he could treat people, the medicine they needed, and the dosage. He had some very interesting ideas about illness causation: STDs are caused when an older woman sleeps with a younger man who is not her husband and her eggs infect the man; malaria is caused when, typically during the wet season, people drink water where mosquitos have been breeding, causing the person to ingest mosquito eggs and when the person eats sweets or other sugary foods, the eggs hatch in their stomach, causing malaria. On Sunday we went to our last market day, confident in our bartering skills for Maasai fabric and maembe (mangos).
